


Dead Balloons

by diamondgore



Category: X-23 (Comic), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Drabbles, F/F, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Misuse of Telepathy, mention of being abducted, plot armor? I wouldn't count it since there's no plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 09:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18775099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diamondgore/pseuds/diamondgore
Summary: Sophie's stuck in Laura's head. Laura's stuck in-between a rock and a hard place.





	Dead Balloons

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from Blackbear's _DEAD BALLOONS_
> 
> They never really mentioned what happened to Sophie once she melded with Laura, so this is sort of an exploration of that, and an exploration of an alternate version of an Emma Frost/Logan hybrid like Diamond Patch in Infinity Wars.

_ Laura, could you please wake up? I know you’re alive.  _

 

The voice is faint and bizarre. Laura gets hit with a wave of nausea when her eyes open up, as the bright and too familiar lights almost blind her. She can’t feel anything, not her limbs, and not her face. She knows, however, from the way she’s angled to the ground that she’s caught in a few very expensive adamantium chains.

 

She stays calm, there’s no need to lose her temper, her calm. She’s going to take it, until she gets more answers. 

 

“Where am I?” Laura asks, trying to find the source of the voice. It must be her damned captors, but there’s no one around, just miles and miles of white glossy tile. “Where’s Gabby?” 

 

The idea of Gabby being taken away from her makes her try to fight against her chains, but they make no sound as there’s still no feeling in her arms and legs. 

 

“Where’s---”

 

_ Calm down Laura, it’s just you and me. Gabby never came with you, you were abducted. This wasn’t a mission. _

 

Laura inches her head forward, realizing that she was still in formal clothes.  _ What a pain to fight in _ . There’s a gap in her memories, but she did remember something about stalking out a fundraiser, she had to blend in. Gabby didn’t come with because she hated the feel of formal clothes against her skin. The gap in her memories is annoying, but she's assuming that it's not that important, perhaps she was just knocked out early on in the process. 

 

But she still hadn’t realized who she was talking to just yet, there wasn’t a third person in the room, and telepaths had a habit of sending their projections, not just their voice. 

 

“Who are you? And why do you know so much?” 

 

_ It’s Sophie. When I saw them knock you out I decided to turn off your pain receptors. They have power blocking collars on you.  _

 

“Great.” Laura briefly forgot that Sophie uses her headspace as a second home. Over time, Sophie’s presence faded, but she’s still there. She didn’t need Sophie to feed her obvious details but it left more room for her to analyze the finer things. “Turn on my pain receptors, Soph. I’m not a child.” 

 

_ Trust me, you don’t want to feel what they’re doing to you.  _

 

“I’ve been through worse, just turn them on.” 

 

_ It’s your funeral.  _

 

A burning sensation of pain rushes through Laura’s spine and she muffles a scream by biting her lower lip so hard it bleeds. Her body strains as she thrashes, hoping to make the pain go away, begging for her healing factor to come back to her. A few seconds later the pain stops and Laura’s heart is beating so loudly against her chest she can hear it's echo in the plain tiled room. She knows pain, but it was never anything that severe. She had her arm cut off and it didn’t hurt this badly. 

 

Panting, Laura calms her nerves. “You turned them off again.” 

 

Laura isn’t going to admit any time soon that she was happy the pain was done and over with, but it felt good to have an on and off switch ready in her head. Sophie’s helpful in small doses. 

 

_ They hurt you after putting a collar on you, that’s why the pain is fresh. _

 

“Thanks for the recap.” Laura says, now regaining a normal feeling in her arms. Sophie is slowly giving her back control of her limbs, she realizes. Sophie’s rewiring her nerves so that she wouldn’t feel pain, despite her body clearly being in searing pain a few moments ago. 

 

Maybe having Sophie in her head is not the worst thing in the world despite her occasional snide comments. Laura makes a fist, and releases her claws. She’s not sure how to escape from the chains, but maybe Sophie has an idea. 

 

“So how do we leave? Did you see the exit?” 

 

_ Yes. I forced your eyes open after you passed out. I think you need to make some noise, to alert the guards. _

 

“And then what?” 

 

_ I’m working on that.  _

 

Laura sighs. She knows that Sophie is working hard to formulate a plan, but she wishes she would work much faster. While waiting, Laura goes against her nature and thrashes like an animal caught in a trap. She screams and snarls instead of patiently waiting for someone to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn’t hurt when she shakes her chain, and apparently it’s loud enough to alert one of the guards. 

 

The guard walks in, b-lining towards Laura. He’s wearing a mask, full protection, and has his hand on his gun. Neither Sophie nor Laura could tell what he gun was filled with. Whether it had poison or sedatives or bullets. Whatever, it wasn’t like either of them could die. This was a low cost-high profit situation. He points the gun at Laura as he approaches. 

 

Sophie takes the chance and gets into his head. The mechanics of accessing her telepathy is harder than she expected, having to use Laura’s brain waves and her energy to access the telepathy.  They expect Wolverine, they don’t expect a Cuckoo. They don’t expect an extraordinary telepath who lives in the head of the most  _ kick-ass _ Wolverine. His mental blocks were child play to someone like Sophie. 

 

The guard drops his gun, and shoots a ceramic bullet into the ceiling. Some of the tile fragments fall, and he searches his body for the keys to the chains around Laura’s wrists and ankles. She stopped thrashing long ago, and was now just intently watching the guard, making sure Sophie had full control over his body. 

 

He walks towards her, and simply undoes her chains, and Laura falls to the ground, and then picks  herself up like nothing is wrong, but she knows Sophie can’t keep the control for long. Sophie’s powers are intensely dampened as long as she had to share the headspace with Laura.  

 

“What now?” She asks, transfixed on her reflection in the visor of the man. She sees through it, and focuses on the empty and glassy eyes he had. It was creepy when telepaths messed with people, they always left people with haunting eyes. 

 

_ Give me a minute, I’m trying to channel my energy.  _

 

There is a slight stinging sensation on Laura’s hands. She looks down and sees two psi-claws, in a light blue color, emitting from her knuckles. They look like Psylocke’s psi-blades, but Laura isn’t sure how to use them. She isn’t even sure how Sophie managed to create them. “Do you think you could do that with your organic diamond form?” 

 

_ Laura.  _

 

“Sorry. Do you want me to stab him?”

 

_ Through the head, it’ll knock him out.  _

 

“And then?” 

 

_ Steal his clothes. I know you’re not a fan of the formal wear, and I believe this would make our escape much easier.  _

 

Laura clenches her fist and then stabs the psi-claws through the man’s head. He falls to the ground she she hears Sophie laugh in her head. 

 

“You found something?” Laura asks, as she begins stripping his body of clothes. There doesn’t seem to be a camera in the room. It seems to be quite bare, or else they would’ve sent in more people for her. She took off the helmet first, then the jacket and then his pants. 

 

_ Nothing important, his memories are just pathetic. Also, I found the way out.  _

 

“Got it.” 

 

_ And by the way Laura? _

 

“Yes?” Laura begins to undress, not wanting to show her body for too long. She’s rushing through the process, throwing on the clothes. 

 

_ Take off the supressing collar _ . 

 

Laura zips up the pants and buttons up her shirt. She then clicks the switch at the back of her neck. The collar falls to the floor and Laura begins to put the guard she knocked out into the chains. 

 

It’s going to be a long night, but at least she was spending it with Sophie. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr [@diamondgore](http://diamondgore.tumblr.com)!
> 
> If you like this concept please like....tell me because this would be fun to work with in the future ;D


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